I voted 2-1 when this poll was posted for one reason. Bronx has the collection I'd like to see but Zurich has exhibits I feel I need to see. Since joining ZooChat I've been in awe of the snow leopard and bear/coati enclosures at Zurich and nothing at Bronx comes close according to photos. Bronx also loses points for all indoor leopard, fossa and vontsira enclosures.
After a long PM discussion @CGSwans, I've decided to wade back into the cup threads Yeah I hate that Amur Leopard enclosure if I'm being honest, the only upside to it is it's quite tall stretching both below the floor and above. It has a lot more climbing opportunities than a lot of Leopard enclosures but it's still way too small. I was really hoping they'd replace their generic melanistic animals with the Palawan Binturongs they brought in from Nashville but looks like we're stuck with a Leopard in there for the considerable future. It's definitely the worst carnivore enclosure and one of the worst enclosures at the zoo period. The Fossa on the other hand I think have a rather nice habitat. It's indoors yes but it's the same size as most outdoor Fossa enclosures. In addition to this the zoo also has three orphaned Cougar cubs behind the scenes and Striped Skunk in the Children's Zoo. While they relatively commonplace animals in European zoos, it must be noted just how rare the vontsira and Dhole are in the US. Bronx is only the fifth US zoo to keep Dholes and only the fourth to actually exhibit them, and they are the only US zoo with vontsira of any species. Additionally, I feel the presence of two tiger subspecies must be noted more. Very few US zoos keep more than one subspecies of tiger, and it's fairly rare for any northern zoo to keep anything other than Amur, yet Bronx has breeding populations of both Amur and Malayan Tigers exhibited side-by-side. From my understanding, the zoo boasts roughly a dozen cats in an extensive off-show compound. And while not quite as impressive from a conservation standpoint, the zoo does keep two subspecies of Brown Bear as well (depending on one's taxonomy). In addition to Grizzly Bears, the zoo also has three Sitka Brown Bears from the ABC islands off the coast of Alaska/Canada. The wolf? ~Thylo
The Leopard I understand, but is it unusual/bad to keep Euplerids indoors? They're relatively small species and as long as the enclosures meet all their space and enrichment requirements I don't think it's fair knock points off of Bronx for having them indoor, especially when Bronx's enclosures match the size of zoos who keep them outdoors anyway. I'd also argue that, for the Fossa, the intentionally darker enclosure matches their natural habitat a lot better than being kept in direct sunlight. ~Thylo
Some pictures from Zurich for comparison. Thoughts likely to follow later. Spectacled bear and coati left enclosure overview panorama (bottom viewpoint) left enclosure top viewpoint left enclosure left viewpoint panorama left enclosure bottom viewpoint detail middle enclosure panorama right enclosure panorama -> on zoolex ZooLex Exhibit - Spectacled Bears
Legitimate question, though, are there no problems with predation when mixing coatis and bears? Didn't South Lakes mix these species and see several of their animals consumed? EDIT: spoke too soon! Didn't realize they were uploading enclosures one at a time. ~Thylo
snow leopard top viewpoint panorama (with leopard) piano wire viewpoint panorama middle viewpoint (with leopard close-by) -> on zoolex ZooLex Exhibit - Himalayas Exhibit for Snow Leopards
tiger Unfortunately there are no good pictures of the tiger enclosure on this site. It is 1.5x to 2x the size of the snow leopard enclosure, and does not fall short aesthetically next to it. The zoo does however have a webcam of the enclose (scroll to bottom of page): Webcams | Zoo Zürich landscaping architects (click on plan to view layout of tiger, snow leopard, red panda, and mongolian wolf enclosures): 506 Himalayaanlage Zoo Zürich - vetschpartner Landschaftsarchitekten AG -> on zoolex ZooLex Exhibit - Himalayas Exhibit for Siberian Tigers main viewing area
mongolian wolf piano wire viewpoint -> on zoolex ZooLex Exhibit - Himalayas Exhibit for Mongolian Wolves
red panda (no 'enclosure' photos on this site). -> on zoolex ZooLex Exhibit - Himalayas Exhibit for Red Pandas
asiatic lion & asian small clawed otter -> on zoolex ZooLex Exhibit - Indian Lions Exhibit -> landscaping architects (click plan for overview of enclosure) 623 Indischer Löwe Zoo Zürich - vetschpartner Landschaftsarchitekten AG
I respectfully disagree, I'd much rather see diurnal (or crepuscular) species displayed in an ootdoor exhibit. And when it's something the size of a fossa (let alone a leopard ) then I personally feel it's a bit inadequate. And despite all of that reasoning I'm still giving Bronx a point. If this match would've been on pretty much any other category then it would have gone the other way, but my 2-1 stands.
Isn't that like saying that a "darker" enclosure is more suitable for lemurs from the same habitats (e.g. Ring-tailed Lemurs or Sifaka) than keeping those lemurs outside?
I'd imagine that any species that is native to a dense forested area would probably be more suited for a darker (maybe shaded if the better term?) enclosure than kept in open sunlight. I don't know if there's any proof for that, especially since rainforest animals kept in sunnier enclosures seem to do just fine for the most part, but my main point is that I don't think an enclosure is automatically worse just because it's indoors. ~Thylo
The spectacled bears have all been provided with the wrong prescription and therefore can't see the coatis to eat them. Give them bifocals and it's on for young and old.
